Gerald Condon, a junior studying Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Central Florida, compares himself to Ferb from Disney’s animated show Phineas and Ferb. Along with his younger brother, Todd, Gerald drove his babysitters, of which there were many, crazy with daily schemes and projects.
Keeping babysitters on their toes came naturally by virtue of Gerald’s unique skill set. As a toddler, Gerald built elaborate wood train tracks with lego bridges connecting different furniture. Gerald had to promise his parents that he wouldn’t dismantle and repurpose his new toys with his father’s tools, which he usually ended up doing anyways.
“He constantly dissects everything he sees and imagines every component the way it functions,” Todd said. “Once I witnessed him standing on a small bridge structure supported by a pile of books on each end. Turns out he made the bridge which could hold hundreds of pounds out of two file folders and wood glue.”
Pitching his innovative ideas to his friends is something of a regularity for Gerald, and his friends are always helping him bounce ideas around.
Lauren Taylor, Gerald’s girlfriend, detailed an afternoon hearing Gerald’s idea for a custom turbocharger for his car. Gerald explained his plan over lunch, using napkins to draw detailed sketches while enthusiastically conveying his vision.
“Every other week he’ll come into my room with a new idea for a product he wants to make,” said Josh Sheldon, Gerald’s roommate at UCF’s Towers.
Gerald’s father brought the family business, Condon Jewelers, to Stuart from his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. He met Gerald’s mother, who is from the Philippians, while earning his graduate gemologist diploma in California. He built a home in Port Saint Lucie, where Gerald was born and raised.
As a child Gerald loved to daydream, but his parents, who specialized in precious metals, tried to convince him that “no one pays you to think.” They didn’t anticipate his kind of thinking and motivation however, and when what had started with Gerald simply paying attention to simple things, such as random particles floating in class, he began to pay particular attention to what the wind was doing around buildings and cars, finding his invisible new interest: fluid dynamics.
“Just the fact that it [wind] is invisible made me want to learn so much about it,” Gerald said.
Among Gerald’s list of interesting hobbies is lucid dreaming, which means to realize consciously that you are dreaming. In middle school he started to recognize when he was dreaming, and used it to study for exams the night before while sleeping using only his memory of his textbooks.
“He’s just very unique, finding someone who is both so scientific and artistic isn’t easy,” Lauren said.
Having tinkered with the old computer in his home regularly as a child, Gerald developed advanced technical skills and proficiency in over ten programming languages. He made a little money on the side in high school fixing people’s computers.
“He doesn’t think like anyone else I know,” Todd said, “he thinks in shapes, numbers and equations.”
Gerald’s massive rocket encyclopedia sits close to his desk, which resembles more of a command center than a desk. His whiteboard is filled with equations and miscellaneous sketches for ideas.
Gerald compares himself to the Fennec fox, a small, agile animal native to the Sahara. Though Gerald’s endless energy can get him distracted easily, his motivation keeps him bouncing between fresh new ideas, Lauren said. Gerald describes his life as a grand bridge, and by focusing on what he wants he can envision the steps he needs to get where he wants to go, which is usually faster and upwards.
Under his bed Gerald keeps his toolbox, and always nearby his trusty B’laster lubricant, which he is always applying generously to his mechanical projects, which include a longboard he built.
Out of high school Gerald landed an internship shadowing a NASA engineer at the Kennedy Space Center. After peaking over the shoulders of NASA rocket engineers, Gerald paid particular attention to their work on consoles monitoring thousands of sensors on regularly launched rockets carrying satellites.
“I used what I knew of computers and gaming programming to write a program that did the job of monitoring these sensors and presenting the data in real time with real-time statistics,” Gerald said.
Gerald’s work astounded NASA management, and although he was courted by private firms, chose to keep his talents at NASA. He has been working at NASA as a Launch Services Program Fluids Programmer ever since.
Gerald records anything he says that he might consider quote-worthy; one of his own quotes reads:
“Success is only determined by the extent and effort of our own capabilities. A good harvest to a simple farmer, is no less joyous than the invention of the light bulb is to Thomas Edison. The flourishing of your efforts alone should be justification for continuing in this conundrum called life.”
